(｀_´)ゞ(｀_´)ゞSPREAD THE WORD: KEIJI INAFUNE WILL BE ANSWERING QUESTIONS AS PART OF A REDDIT AMA (ASK ME ANYTHING) TONIGHT, WED SEPT 25TH FROM 6 - 8PM PST! HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE! (｀_´)ゞ(｀_´)ゞ

Aloha, Mighty Beckers!

Welcome to our very last, but very special Comcept Concept Wednesday! This week we have a dual dose of behind-the-screens goodness: first, our progress developing three key Mighty No. 9 characters (the people responsible for the creation of Beck and the Mighty Numbers as well as the xel technology that drives them), and second, a peek at the xels themselves -- the mascots of Mighty No. 9, if you will -- complete with early design sketches of the mascot plushie we’re offering at the $175 and up reward tiers!

Our narrator, once again -- director Koji Imaeda. Take it away, Koji!

WHAT’S UP, DOCS?

Imaeda: In our updates so far, we've talked about Beck, we’ve talked about a few of the bosses and footsoldier enemies, and we’ve even showed some tentative heroine designs, but hmm… Aren't we forgetting something? Wait, that's right -- we haven’t talked about the doctors who created all of the above! Specifically:

Dr. White: The independent robotics researcher who created Beck and all the other Mighty Numbers. (If you were at our PAX panel and received one of the limited Mighty No. 9 t-shirts we gave out, you may have already seen this name!)

Dr. Blackwell: The inventor of "xel" technology, which revolutionized the robotics industry and forms the basis of the world of Mighty No. 9.

Dr. Sanda: A specialist in humanoid robotics whose work makes extensive use of xel technology.

So! Each of our three doctors is a genius in his own right, and each is supposed to have his own unique look...

...But that doesn't mean it'll be easy! We need designs for not just one, but three separate eccentric geniuses. How can we express this similarity they all share, and yet keep them all distinct from each other? Trial and error! We come up with new ideas, again and again, and Inafune sends them back for revisions, again and again... Slowly but surely, we make progress...

(above) Believe it or not, this is only a fraction of the idea sketches we’ve created! If you look closely, you can get a feel for the variety of experimentation going on, with designs ranging from traditional Japanese and American comic book-styles, to highly stylized caricatures. At the top there...could those be suggestions for additional characters besides the doctors and Call…?

Imaeda: With Mighty No. 9, Inafune and the team are trying to fuse the best qualities of Japanese and Western comics and animation, while at the same time giving the game its own unique look. Easier said than done! What kind of character designs and in-game visuals will we ultimately end up with? All we can say for now is that our artists and designers are all working together as a team, sharing in both the struggles and the excitement of these long days of trial and error...

(above) Even as we were meeting, Natsume was sketching out new ideas and alterations on the fly.

Imaeda: We hope you enjoyed this little window into character development, even if we don’t have any set designs for the doctors to show you just yet. Bear in mind that everything in Mighty No.9, from Beck to the bosses to the smallest of enemies -- even the backgrounds -- goes through this process!

ANATOMY OF A XEL

Next -- because YOU asked for it -- the first real design sketches of our “xel”-based mascot character! This design will be the basis of our mascot plushie!

For a little background, let’s turn it back over to director Imaeda-san:

Imaeda: These are two concept illustrations I asked Inafune to draw for a mascot character for Mighty No. 9. It’s a basic form, composed of eight xels that have linked together to form a block-like character -- a mega-xel, if you will. (Editor’s note: mega-xel will not be this character’s final name, but we will use it now for the sake of clarity.)

Imaeda: This mega-xel can link up with similar mega-xels to grow bigger, or it can split apart into smaller xel blocks, ultimately leading to many different robot shapes and functionalities.

Imaeda: Come to think of it, we haven’t really explained this whole "xel" thing yet, have we? It’s pretty important! The xel concept is the cornerstone of the world of Mighty No. 9. The word “xel” (pronounced “cell”) actually stems from the word “pixel” -- each individual xel is a tiny cube-shaped robot (kind of like a pixel!), and receives its orders from a central unit known as a “core.” Xels can link together with each other to change shape and form an endless variety of robots; Beck, Call, the other Mighty Numbers, even ordinary enemies -- every single robot in Mighty No. 9 is composed of xels, just as all the graphics in games of the past were composed of pixels!

(above) The completed character design for our as-yet-unnamed xel-based mascot. If you pledge at the $175 level or above, this little guy will be yours, in plushie form!

Imaeda: Xels can reach out their hands and join together with other xels; they can change their surface pigment to color the robots they form; they can respond to commands to generate heat or discharge electricity… Every action that a robot performs is ultimately made possible by the work of xels!

In a nutshell, xels are to robots what cells are to human beings. With that in mind, isn’t it only natural that they’d become the mascot character for Mighty No. 9?

-----

So what do you think? Did we xel you on our e-xel-ent new mascot, or what? Quick, give us feedback or we shall shower you with more bad puns!@MightyNo9 on Twitter, Facebook, or the comments here -- we are watching them all, and with just 6 days left in our Kickstarter campaign, we need all the posts and support you can muster, to every corner of the internet! Thanks so much for your time, and we’ll see you again tomorrow

@Johnson - Yeah... in the end it only matters that they consider the idea, and go with what they think is best.

@Pedro - That's probably the third reason I want to push the "Pink/Aero" design so much. I can see how active they can make the character. And you're right, Dr. Light was VERY active in the MMX series, even some how repairing X after fighting Sigma in 5. Would like to see the main good doctor active in this game too though! Nothing wrong with a more sporty doctor in the end!

@ Lani: "What I want is representation. So that other little girls don't have to be ashamed to enjoy an entire art form."

Honestly, I think we're not getting to the crux of the issue here. I think it's the culture, mindset and societal expectations that need to be changed. When I was young, I enjoyed watching Magical Girl anime like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Akazukin Cha Cha, etc... I was teased and even now, as an adult, I do still get made fun of from time to time. Why can't boys enjoy media that are targeted towards girls or those with a strong female lead?

The thing is, they can. And girls can be free to enjoy video games as well. If you don't mind me making an observation, from your personal story, it's not so much about you losing your idol or role-model as it is about losing your edge over the boys who were teasing you. You lost the one thing that validated you playing video games when you found out that Zero was a male.

It honestly doesn't matter how many female characters there are in games or how many male characters there are in Magical Girl anime. What people really need is to understand is that we should all free to enjoy whatever we want and not get judged because of it.

While I'm definitely for adding more females into games, I highly doubt that the teasing or gender discrimination will stop.

Sounds awesome, Aethereal. I mean, the doctors are a really memorable part of Mega Man - you just never forget the first time you found the capsule in X and were like "Hot damn! Dr. Light!". Or all the times in later X games (from X4 and beyond) that they dropped hints that Zero was made by Wily. Them docs stick with ya and the first and foremost thing that needs to happen is that they need to be awesome - but I've no doubt that they will be. I'm a backer because I have full faith in this dev team to make every aspect of this game awesome. It's the main reason why I think they should branch out with their doctors ideas, because if anyone can make a doctor awesome no matter what their race/gender/age/roboticness is, it's these guys, and I'd like to see them push those limits. Your idea is a great example of how they could do that.

Maybe we could use the design for Dr White instead. Reading the response, it seemed like that makes more sense, since Dr White seems to focus on new, revolutionary designs and AI. It feels fitting for a young mind to figure out these things when they can bring new ideas to the table. Plus it would be cute, something like Dr Ciel, to have a character like that designing these things. Maybe she could be blamed for the Mighty No.s going rogue due to her being young and all that.

And I totally wouldn't mind people assuming she's some old man and they're surprised to see a young teenaged girl, the whole world flipping out beneath them from the shock. eue

@Aetherealbunny
"Any other real reason"? Such as what? The only reason that is necessary is "because they can", and they have that reason in the bag. Why do they need an explicit reason to have a female rather than just have one just because they can? Why is it that the males have to be the norm and the females need extenuating circumstances to even be considered? Do you not see how that is a far worse problem than including them for the sake of including them?

I mean, you're saying things as if these concept arts are already the untouchable final designs. Should we take that approach to everything they post and not bother giving feedback at all? Will any and every change we suggest be included for no other real reason than just cause, simply because it wasn't thought of by the designers in the first place? You're obviously going to say no to that, and I'm going to say that this suggestion is no different. Will any change they make, from our suggestions, simply be "pandering"? Why bother asking for the involvement of your community, then? Why should we bother communicating if anything we suggest is just automatically deemed inferior to the dev team's concepts?

I think that should be over now. Now to push that Aero/Pink Call design for Dr Sanda or whoever because hell yes cute pink haired, cat inspired youthful doctor in robotic inspired by Dr White or something aw yeah!

She's a world renowned expert on robotics engineering and will be one of the mentors for the hero, Beck. That will have impact. FAR more impact than any of the meaningless females in GTA V. So how would that be tokenism? It's not like she'd just be a meaningless doctor with nothing to contribute. If she were, THEN she'd be a token female.

@Pedro - Single female doctor = Tokenism. My point is as valid as has been and always will be. Nothing can change that. It's like having a white male character in a story with all of them and they're homosexual. It doesn't remove the tokenism factor.

Presence by it's self is always meaningless. There are females in GTA V, to use your example. People are still upset. Why? There's no impact from them. Think about that one...

I figured this is still getting more attention, but here me out on this:

Pink/Aero Call didn't get picked for the poll, for whatever reason. She's popular still regardless... so why not make her one of the doctors? A young doctor striving to learn more and more, trying to become more like Dr White, being able to create a robot with more human like emotions and AI.

Can't help but figure that still fits into the theme of what we're going for. Plus, it would be nice to see an action ready doctor too!

@Aetherealbunny
You are not understanding Tokenism. Tokenism comes from the DEPICTION part of the triad. It comes from when there is only only depiction of the presence. The "token black guy" is a depiction problem. If the LEAD character was black and every single other character was white, he wouldn't be the "token black guy" anymore, despite the presence amount being the exact same. So, yes, I fully understand what tokenism means, and no, I don't see how NOT having a female doctor is more admirable than having one - how avoiding presence entirely is better than giving it a shot because we're afraid we might get it wrong? That's seriously self-limiting thinking.

@Petri
Ah yes, the bigger person, of course you are, mate. You are attempting to shut down any level of suggestion by virtue of "the developer is king" in a KICKSTARTER project where the developer asks for constant feedback. You are hoping to say your point and have it hang above everyone else's without criticism or scrutiny, because you are just "stating your views", even though you say things that are patently ill-informed, as I have pointed out in my previous post. You know nothing about the legacy of Mega Man as you clearly demonstrated by insinuating that Inafune's characters are just empty caricatures. As such, you have no valid point to make about the developers intentions. So you can bet that I will target what you say, because I'm not the one who thinks to rethink things.

@El Johnson
As I said in all of my previous posts, this isn't about making No 9 a feminist movement. It's not about equality or complex gender issues. It's a simple matter of having 1 out 3 intelligent people in a position of power be a female. Is that REALLY so much to ask? There is no way such a simple thing could negatively impact on the awesomeness of the platforming, the gameplay, or Beck himself. So why be so opposed to it? Anyone, in fact.

Again, I'm going to cite my previous two posts here recounting my PERSONAL story where presence made a difference. And I stopped playing games entirely for a couple years because I was too ashamed. And when boys would say "games are for boys, not girls" I had no characters to rely on.

It's a bit better now, but, again, this mentality is still around and can still be impactful. Again, as I said below, I teach two young girls Japanese on the weekends (well, one on Monday) and both are big gamers on their 3DS's, but they refuse to bring them to school for fear of being made fun of.

The picking on is going to happen for awhile yet - but if you have a lot of strong, female characters present in games, you can at least come back against it with examples. I couldn't and I lost three or four solid years of gaming because of it.

Presence makes a difference. Maybe it isn't as tangible for those of us who are older (it still has an important effect though), but it's very tangible and very real for those who are younger.

@Pedro - All I really need to say is, have you ever heard of Tokenism? Clearly not or you would understand what I mean by presence. Go have a look. That's what people are trying to create. It's why I want to see Call be pushed forward. She can be more than that. Same with female bosses, they're there, and they're strong

And you can't act like Call isn't smart. Looking at the concepts we've seen, if we can determine anything from what they're showing us, they're going for a SMART individual who's still ready to be active in the field. Most of the designs are clearly meant to be mechanics to boot. If you can't see Call as some one who's really intelligent, then there's something wrong with the way you're looking at the over all thing.

Presences means nothing. Actions the characters have and what they do mean everything.

@Lani - This argument would make sense...if Beck wasn't already the male lead. Honestly, with most Doujinsoft games having female leads, I would best focus the effort on promoting those. My favorite series stars only female protagonists, and they're pretty smart, strong, etc without being overly sexy.

Honestly, the reason most of us want to see Call playable is so she doesn't suffer the fate of some support character, especially becoming another Roll. I think the designs took off because they look like they're active and ready, much more modern. *shrug*

Honestly, I doubt we'll see much happen with these doctors outside of backstory. Dr Light himself wasn't really around much till MMX, and even then ,he was a hologram. The Doctor who was most active was Wily, which is another reason to support a villainous doctor grandma eue

And so, when little girls go to play the game, they'll continue to have the same experience I did when I was young. The one female character, to whom you identify, will be the sidekick delegated to a bonus game, at best.

No great intelligent scientists or action heroes for us! Our role is to support the men! I mean, lest we forget, Call is being designed as a "support bot" - similar in nature to Roll and her inspiration vacuum and broom.

When I was young, I was always told by the boys in the schoolyard that "games weren't for girls." I was laughed at, had things thrown at, and abused to the point where I had to be driven to school as the bus became too hostile.

All because I played games.

I always retaliated with Zero, because I thought "he" was a girl. And, until X2 came out, I was always able to hold that example against my aggressors.

Then it turned out Zero was a guy.

And, before you mention Samus, please note that Samus is only recently a "visible" female character. I didn't know she was female until I was very nearly 14 or 15. You can only find that out in Super Metroid by beating the game within a certain number of minutes - which none of us in the schoolyard did. I mean, even further than that, relatives would buy me games with female main characters in them - but they were all barbie games or little mermaid games, etc. They were all terrible. I'm not even asking for a female lead here...

I don't mean to be rude, but please - let's not let that happen to more girls. It's traumatizing. It's horrific. Games became something that I was ashamed of for YEARS. The narrative in the schoolyard reflects the narrative of the adults - but the children are more able to admit it. The cry "games are for boys" is still heard. I teach Japanese to some young girls in middle school and both enjoy their 3DS games immensely, but hide it from their schoolmates. It's STILL happening. And it shouldn't.

I don't want the game to talk about or address gender disparities, etc. This game is meant to be a light, fun game and not a serious one.

What I want is representation. So that other little girls don't have to be ashamed to enjoy an entire art form.

No apologies needed, i just don't want to see people turn against each other and get snippy just cause there's a lack of women characters in a game.
I'm not declaring victory , i haven't planted an imaginary victory flag nor am i making this some self righteous argument. Dead wrong.
I would love to just see people not ramble on about the lack of female characters in MN9 . That's all. Lets focus on Beck , and why he is going to be awesome, lets focus on Call , and why she's going to be awesome.

@ El Johnson
"what are YOU doing?"
Being the bigger person, apparently. Every comment thus far I've made with that in mind that this is a comment section, and everything here is first and foremost for the Comcept people and other, third parties to read and take into consideration while making the game, while you're turning it into a self-centered argument between you and me personally. Right up to your latest one you're clearly just aiming for self-vindication, as if you're declaring yourself some sort of a winner because I'm finished with my point and won't provide you with any more sidetracking kitchen theories about women's studies for you to counter. And you resolve with mimcry. Pathetic.

Sorry El Johnson, this one's on me. This one comment. And only to maybe get one person to rethink their navel-gazing.

Comcept is specifically asking for their supporter's input. Inafune-san says it in every video. So why would we want to leave them alone to generate ideas in a vacuum? This is why we're providing feedback.

Yeah, if we could not turn Mighty No. 9 in to a feminist movement, that'd be great.
How about we let @Comcept do what they do and we stop leaving long winded posts about women being in video games, as far as I remember there has always been female protagonists : Chell, Samus , Jill Valentine , Lara Croft , to name a few.
What bugs me is just about every post every topic , every update the same people are turning into a sexist issue. The same people are going on about why aren't there female characters, why can't we use Call , girl this women that, lets just chill. This is a game about ROBOTS and it's getting old. Seriously . I get it , girl power. Cool. Awesome.
But lets keep the focus on Mighty No 9. If this were a game about female robots and there was 0 male characters I wouldn't care, just as long as it's an awesome game. That's all i want. An awesome game.

I said things and hopefully defended those things from being discredited by other things that thinged. Seems the thing has been laid to rest, so I'm reading the latest issue of The Smog and getting hungry; what are YOU doing?

Ok, then why are we arguing if you haven't read my posts? Your argument about Mighty No 9 dealing with gender issues is perfectly sound, but it has nothing to do with anything I'm suggesting, which I summed up earlier here:
"Presence is the first and foremost element of equality, and by no means am I expecting or demanding equality; I am fully aware we are very far from that ideal, but presence is a simple and easy place to start. Presence, depiction, equality. In that order. You won't get equality without diverse depiction, but you won't even begin to get diverse depiction without a female character first being present. "

Tackling gender issues is DEFEINTIELY beyond the scope of Mighty No 9, we fully agree. But a simple thing like gender presence, making an awesome female doctor instead of a third awesome male doctor, is well within their realm of exploration. There's really no reason for the exclusion. Like I said, in this case, it's not about equality of representation, just representation, full stop.
That's all you need. That's all a young girl gamer needs as a role model. Someone they can see is female, for all intents and purposes, and who is a world expert on robotics engineering. It CAN stay that simple, really, it can, because, as you said, Mighty No 9 has other things to accomplish, like awesome platforming. It can stop at simple representation and in that simple act will do MILES for females in games. Other games can then explore the more complex issues.

With Call (assuming ass-kicking like Beck and not dust-bustin' like Roll), No. 3, and a female doctor, they'll have a perfect triumvirate of representation and would actually be an example for others to improve upon. Isn't that just plain good design?

@ Pedro Ramos
Ehhh, hardly. You talk about diversion tactics, but that's just you doing the, let's see...
"As a classic debate diversion tactic, you are bringing up points NOBODY MADE and defeating them in an attempt to make yourself look right." What a diversionception. Absolutely diversionlicious! Trust me, you're diversing plenty well on your own, no input from me needed. And if I had a go, I wouldn't be making so clear difference between what I'm assuming and what I know.

"Kids DON'T relate to opposite gender role models - for all the myriad reasons I outlined earlier."
You did? Honestly, I don't know where. I agree they don't, but I'm sure what we believe to be the reason for this are wildly different.

"It doesn't matter whether you believe a fictional creation can have a gender or not, the reality is that they DO and always will."
That just it, you oversimplify, and call for others to as well, what having a gender entails. In what you mean by "they DO have genders" you are correct, but that doesn't pertain to reality in the kind of way that justifies the many grounded demands for there to be more women in videogames. Mighty No. 9 doesn't apply simply because it's too small of a game to explore any gender issues, it's too busy exploring the dimensions of being a good platformer. Any gender issues they toss into the background will just be an outline upon which the player may impose their own preconceptions about gender to fill in the blanks, and so it won't result in a chauvinist taking women any more seriously. I'm calling for any arguments to the contrary to stop, because they're wrong in this case, and I don't want smart people to start dismissing them. Because there are times that same argument is not wrong, but neccesssary point out.

As for the completely different argument that women are entitled to objectify their own gender for entertainment purposes (by the proxy of game developers catering to their demands), I'm just... eh. I don't like the hypocrisy, but generally the women who want that are okay with men doing it as well, so whatever. Not much hypocrisy occurs, besides according to the misguided notion that some women speak for all women. Let alone that some men do.

Well Petri, you clearly haven't played any Mega Man or Mega Man X games before if you think Inafune is trying to create/recreate unrelatable characters that are mere shells of an idea.

You are woefully incorrect if you think these characters won't have distinct personalities that are worth looking up to, and flaws making them worth caring for. That isn't and never HAS BEEN the spirit of Mega Man. And Might No 9 is the spiritual successor to that legacy. A legacy that has always explored HUMANITY, of humans as well as machines. A legacy about what makes one human, what separates a machine from a human, and what it means to be human - metallic or flesh.

At the very LEAST, it is art, like all video games. All art is an expression, a representation, a message. Inafune very clearly sees video games in this light. He didn't make Mega Man to be a "superficial outline of reality", and he certainly didn't expand on the concept with Mega Man X to "not treat the characters as individuals". He did all that, and wants to revisit that in Might No 9, to COMMENT on reality, on the ESSENCE OF BEING HUMAN. Points you very clearly did not pick up on, so please go back and replay the games.

As a classic debate diversion tactic, you are bringing up points NOBODY MADE and defeating them in an attempt to make yourself look right. NO ONE said male characters are lesser in ANY way. What we HAVE said is that it would be nice for a female to be shown as an equal to a male. It doesn't matter whether you believe a fictional creation can have a gender or not, the reality is that they DO and always will. Stop trying to muddle the argument by arguing a philosophical rhetoric that has to place in practical applications.

These characters will be relatable. It is a given, as this is Inafune. These characters are, like Mega Man was, targeted at younger audiences - why do you think he explicitly said "Make him cute" when designing Beck? If he wanted to appeal to the same crowd and exclude younger audiences, he would have maintained the Mega Man X aesthetic. Kids don't think like an adult does. Kids DON'T relate to opposite gender role models - for all the myriad reasons I outlined earlier. Inafune wants kids to play these games (obviously), it is only fair, then, that the young girls who play this game (or its future installments) have an equally awesome doctor to look up to and aspire to - because it could be their first encounter with a female robotics engineer expert. Why should only boys get the chance to make that easy connection with a genius?

@ exarkun02
That could only come off as aggressive if I hit the mark in some way. Or, because of the typos, but that's just because I speedwrote it.

But please, don't use the word "diversity" here. It means bigger things than you might think. Mass Effect 3 ending had more diversity than the option between 2 different genders, and that didn't please many.

Mighty No. 9, like many games, represents exactly nobody besides the games creators. It's not like the Last of Us where the developement of realistic characters is a central conflict, which makes for an argument that the female identity shouldn't be treated as if it didn't exist besides men.

Here that logic is completely inapplicable. None of these characters are treated as individuals. They are caricatures, made to convey an idea of some human emotion, but not the essence of anything human, emotion or otherwise. From them you couldn't learn anything about people that you dind't already know, and that includes MISrepresentations as well, they only invoke the ideas in you that you've gotten elsewhere. Any aspect of these caricatures, including gender, is just a superficial outline of the reality of it. They're tools, objects, made for the use of the creator.

It makes makes me sad reading some of these reasoning for "female characters" to be included, because it proves how you simply don't undrstand what you're talking about but are still out there to muddle the issue with your false logic and moot points.
And it makes me angry to read some of these reasonings, because you seem to assume these caricatures are somehow lesser, I suppose by being less relatable, simply because they are superficially male. If somebody has such a hang-up with trying to identify with the opposite sex don't get them vindication, get them some psychiatric help. And any women out there, you're welcome to feel included in that.

@ Aetherealbunny
Presence is the first and foremost element of equality, and by no means am I expecting or demanding equality; I am fully aware we are very far from that ideal, but presence is a simple and easy place to start. Presence, depiction, equality. In that order. You won't get equality without diverse depiction, but you won't even begin to get diverse depiction without a female character first being present.
And that's the thing. The third doctor is a GRAND opportunity to at least start that, whilst maintaining the retro references and spreading a good message:
- Dr. White = Dr. Light
- Dr. Sanda = Dr. Cain
- Dr. Blackwell = Entirely new doctor, and a female to showcase how the audience for this type of game has changed dramatically since the retro age.

Things like this "absolutely must be done" - we can't just have every single developer think "it's ok, I won't bother with female characters because someone else will eventually". It applies to races too (ie. Dr. Sanda should be a black male). It needs to be done by someone so that it can start being done by everyone. So if not this development team, why not and which one instead?

Sure, more female bosses would be excellent too, but they at least have one - an excellent start - whilst having zero doctors, zero intelligent women in high profile positions of power. Only men can be in that elite circle...

There is just ZERO reason to not have diversity amongst the doctors. White male, black male, asian female. Why not? That's the real question that needs answering: why NOT? Because it will feel forced? Does the refreshing multiculturalism of Community feel forced? No, because the characters are done well. If characters are done well, diversity should never feel forced. If it feels forced to you despite that, then you need to reevaluate your idea of standards...

@BuritoBoi
Society has their issues when it comes to expectations and pressures on kids, definitely, but same-gender idolization is not one of those things. Society amplifies it, to be sure, but it's a natural attachment the brain makes when it is young because it is a vision of your future. If you're a girl, the man isn't really a vision of your future. When you get older, absolutely that will change and you'll see a character for what they represent rather than what they are. But kids are vastly more shallow - in a game of "Pretend-to-be", as Jacob said, a boy will simply almost never choose a female character to pretend to be - because they aren't female and the barrier stops there.
As I said above, I'm not pushing for equal representation, I'm pushing for representation, PERIOD. 2 male doctors and 1 female? I'm fine with that. 3 male doctors and 1 female? Hey, it's a start. 3 males, 0 female? Begs the question... why? What could possibly be a valid reason, in this day and age, to completely eschew a female doctor in favor of a THIRD male? How is that variety? Diversity? Or any of the things they want to bring into this game?

It's clear from the concept art on display here that a female has not yet crossed their minds. Of course, these characters are still very early in development and can change. I certainly hope it does. I would LOVE it if the final 3 doctors were left to backer voting - but only if they first bother to give us the option to vote on diverse characters.
I doubt they're done brainstorming on these characters, and that is why I am here: to keep diversity on the forefront of their mind when they come back to them. And really, I don't see why anyone would be opposed to that.

As I said, if it feels like a forced inclusion to you even if the character designs are awesome, then your definition of standards needs an introspection.

"A 3d character can be described as a combination of two or more 2d characters." I have no idea about how much of a role the setting and story will play in this particular game, but it would be nice to build immersion and build relatively complex characters. But succinctly

@Lani - Actually, we've always had women playing games. It was only targeted at boys because "Men like action, girls like drama and dressup" bs that companies came up with. Of course, it should be clear that with games like Barbie...there were, albeit poor, attempts at making games with girls in mind. It's the wrong aim, but it goes to show that gaming has always been open. It should also be mentioned all my friends are adults who grew up playing games, most of them are female.

Regardless, I think what you say there is a far stronger argument than anything else. You're not pushing anything on anyone, you're explaining your stance. And if anything, under all the contra you've swung this thing around respectfully.

Honestly, I would like to see people be more like "Make one/all of the remaining bosses female", since they'll be more of the center front. I've seen a lot of smart gals in games, I would like to see more action ready ones.

Though, keep in mind I'm also not saying there shouldn't be a female doctor or all three. In the end it's better to just try to get people to come together and give ideas based on your own!

@Pedro - I don't think people are ignoring those facts in all honesty. It's a good idea to bring up why to do go with these ideas too.

But I think the problem is, is that it's being treated like it absolutely must be done. It's sad to see only a few people really making this situation horrible... Honestly no one has been at the throats of people who are only saying "we should have a female doctor". And honestly, in the end, I don't see why it only has to be one either. It makes the goal less about equality and more about presence.

At the same time I can understand if people also want it to reflect on past times, with Dr LIght and the rest. This isn't a stab at the opposite gender or anything... their gender is part of those characters' identities.

Basically, as it's been said before in different ways, it's a good idea to suggest things, but you shouldn't berate them for their final decision, one that they haven't even made yet.

And that's the problem...it was the aggression, not the suggestion, that was getting people upset >: There were multiple posts about an idea for a female doctor before this situation came up, so it's definitely not that.

I think SexyBuritoBoi there said anything else I could try to add, as well as repeated some things that I think people are ignoring in the end too >_<

@Pedro Ramos - I actually like you're argument a lot better than Lani's, it's rather well written, but even if I'm not looking deep enough into this you're still looking too deep into it. I understand where you're coming from with the thing about kids picking role models of their own gender, but I think that's more because of how society treats gender than kids just being that way. I doubt kids think up 'cooties' all on their own, and you have a good point about the ratio of male to female characters in videogames. I do agree that there should be more female characters in videogames who could be seen as role models, I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be. What I am arguing is that they shouldn't make a character female just so they can have equal representation. You say that it looks like they didn't even consider making the doctors female but there's no way you could know that, they could have considered female doctors or we may even be able to vote for a female doctor design at some point, we may be getting a look into the development process but we certainly don't know everything. Even the new documentary video in the update had some box cutter dude we've never seen or heard of until now. And even if there's no chance of a female doctor it might be because the doctors could very well already be characters with personality and back-story, only lacking a physical design. But it's not as if any of this matters because in the end Comcept will and should do what they want to when it comes to the creation of this game.